Kowloon, Hong Kong — #TeamYonex continued to impress at the YONEX-SUNRISE Hong Kong Open, winning gold in all three doubles disciplines. Hong Kong is one of the final tour stops before the World Tour Championships next month in Guangzhou, China, and many Team Yonex players have already clinched their spots in that competition.

In men’s doubles, Kevin S Sukamuljo and Marcus F Gideon (INA) broke their record-best 7 titles won last year by defeating fellow Team Yonex rivals Takeshi Kamura and Keigo Sonoda (JPN) for their 8th title of 2018. The normally heated competition between the two pairs was largely one-sided this time around, as Sukamuljo and Gideon won in straight games, 21-13, 21-12.

Meanwhile, in women’s doubles Yuki Fukushima and Sayaka Hirota of Japan continued their 2018 campaign with a win over Korean duo Lee So Hee and Shin Seung Chan, 21-18, 21-17. Fukushima and Hirota have sat at World No. 1 for 15 straight weeks, and with this win will move to the top of the rankings for the Race to Guangzhou. However, as Misaki Matsumoto and Ayaka Takahashi are scheduled to play at the Syed Modi International Badminton Championships in India this week (while Fukushima and Hirota are not), they are likely to pass Fukushima/Hirota in points. And since each country is allowed to send only two representatives (or pairs) in each discipline, the other spot will go to Mayu Matsumoto and Wakana Nagahara, who clinched an appearance with their World Championship win earlier this year.

The upset of the tournament came from Japanese mixed doubles pair, Yuta Watanabe and Arisa Higashino, who routed the second-seeded team from China, Wang Yilyu and Huang Dongping, 21-18, 21-14. Watanabe and Higashino currently sit at second in the Race to Guangzhou rankings, and have mathematically clinched their spot at the World Tour Finals.